Читать книгу Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Seth Adams C. - Страница 8

The man had awakened while he’d been gone, and pulled his gun on Reggie as Reggie skid to a halt a couple yards away. The man had crawled a good ways from where Reggie had left him, speckled blood trail dotting the leaves and dirt behind him like a snail’s slime tracks.

He stared at Reggie uncomprehendingly, like he was seeing an alien creature. The hand holding the pistol trembled slightly, weak, but also uncertainly, like an epileptic appendage.

‘I didn’t call the police,’ Reggie said, wondering why he hadn’t as he stood there looking into the barrel of the gun. It seemed deep and wide. A chasm of endless depth.

Calling the police was what you did when you saw someone with a gun. Calling an ambulance was what you did when you came across someone injured. He’d done neither.

Reggie thought of his dad sprawled in similar fashion, pressing his hands against a similar wound, and almost turned back then and there. It was a short run to the house, and he could be on the phone in minutes, the police and ambulance here almost as fast.

Then Reggie thought of the man’s admonition, and the gun aimed at his face. Even injured, squinting and gasping through the pain, the man’s face was intense. Focused. His eyes a bright arctic blue.

The man fell back again, looking up, his gun arm flopping to the ground like a reeled-in fish flopping its last breaths.

‘I brought First Aid stuff,’ Reggie said, stepping tentatively closer to the man.

Flapping fish-arm coming back to life, the man waved him over. Reggie didn’t like it when the pistol briefly pointed his way again with the waving. He thought of the gun going off, accidentally or otherwise, and blood coming out of him like it was from the man.

Or maybe getting hit in the face by the bullet and his head exploding.

Would he feel it? he wondered. Would he feel himself die?

He knelt again by the man, unrolling his shirt like a strip of carpet and the peroxide, sterile pads, gauze, and aspirin fell out in a clutter. The man rolled over, groaning, to stare at the stuff. Then he looked up at Reggie; blinked slowly again like a man in deep, leisurely thought.

‘I’ll need … your help …’ the man said, whispering.

Reggie nodded.

‘You took … the money …’ the man moaned. ‘Means … we’ve got an arrangement …’

Reggie nodded. That word – arrangement – stayed with him.

‘It won’t be … pretty …’ the man rasped.

Reggie paused this time, looking at the man’s bloodied middle. He thought of biology class and what was inside people. He remembered the videos they’d watched and the views given by the cameras. The pink and raw things inside everyone.

Slowly, he nodded again.

‘Then let’s get this … over with …’ the man said, and the hand holding the wound disappeared in the other side of his jacket, coming back out with a switchblade. A flick of his wrist, and four inches of wicked blade glimmered back sunlight like a jewel.